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human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan, closer to reality, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Indian Navy have successfully completed ‘well deck’ recovery trials, the space agency announced on Tuesday. The trials were conducted by the Eastern Naval Command using a well deck ship off the coast of Visakhapatnam on December 6. For the Gaganyaan mission, this technique is critical for ensuring the safe recovery of astronauts following their three-day mission around Earth’s orbit. “Once the Crew Module (CM) touches down in the sea at the end of the mission, the crew must be recovered as quickly and comfortably as possible,” ISRO said. A well deck—a ship compartment that can be flooded to allow boats, landing crafts, or spacecraft to dock is a preferred option for recovering the module.

Hamid will also be investigated in connection with attacks on Pakistan's military in May 2023, a statement from the military said.

The deployment covers a wider area this time, with additional ships going beyond Taiwan into other parts of the Pacific, defence officials said at a news conference. Lt. Gen. Hsieh Jih-sheng said China's navy is creating two walls — one at Taiwan's perimeter and another outside the first island chain, which extends south from Japan and through Taiwan to the Philippines. «The message they are sending is very simple: The Taiwan Strait is ours,» he said, referring to the waters between Taiwan and China.

holiday shopping scams that one should watch out for this December. The social media giant has launched a worldwide anti-scam awareness campaign aimed at protecting users from fraudulent schemes during the holiday shopping season. The company, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, revealed it has taken down over two million accounts linked to scam centers in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, the UAE, and the Philippines this year. In another instance, Meta said its enforcement efforts have removed 15,000 phishing URLs in Vietnam and 9,000 in Singapore this year to save people from holiday shopping scams. Meta in a blog post said it has partnered with a top internet safety expert and ethical hacker, Rachel Tobac, to share how scammers might be targeting people online this holiday season and how to avoid scams. Meta disrupted scam campaigns targeting holiday shoppers outside of our platforms and took thousands of malicious URLs that impersonated Meta’s apps off the internet, it said in a statement.

public sector banks (PSBs) stood at Rs 3.16 lakh crore as of September 30, which is 3.09 per cent of the outstanding loans, Parliament was informed on Tuesday. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in the Rajya Sabha that as per provisional data of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), gross NPAs of PSBs and private sector banks as on September 30, 2024 were Rs 3,16,331 crore and Rs 1,34,339 crore, respectively. Further, gross NPAs as percentage of outstanding loan was 3.09 per cent in public sector banks and 1.86 per cent in private sector banks. Chaudhary further said as of March 31, 2024, 580 unique borrowers (excluding individuals and overseas borrowers), each having loan outstanding of more than Rs 50 crore, were classified as wilful defaulters by Scheduled Commercial Banks.

In the family-sponsored categories, F1 moved to November 22, 2015, and F3 advanced to July 1, 2010, for final action. Filing dates for F3 rose to July 22, 2012, while F4 increased to August 15, 2006. Categories F2A and F2B remain largely unchanged. For employment-based preferences, significant shifts include the second preference (EB-2), advancing to October 1, 2012, for final action, while filing dates remain at January 1, 2013. EB-3 and «Other Workers» now have a final action date of December 1, 2012, with no movement in filing dates.

Supreme Court that it had written to the state chief secretaries to follow the law laid down by the apex court on the issue of internet shutdowns. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P B Varale was informed by the Centre about the top court's judgement on internet shutdowns in Anuradha Bhasin's case. In Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, the apex court ruled that an undefined restriction of internet services was illegal and orders for internet shutdown must satisfy the tests of necessity and proportionality. On Tuesday, the petition before the bench alleged shutting down of internet services in some states on account of preventing cheating in examinations.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. NEW DELHI : Amazon is taking the fight to India’s quick commerce startups. Starting this December, the e-commerce giant will roll out 15-minute delivery in Bengaluru, targeting top-selling items like groceries and daily essentials.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Till recently, the digital frontier looked boundless, a perfect virtual world where human interaction and the exchange of ideas were encouraged and democratized. With the rise of AI tools, the internet is witnessing several disconcerting trends.

Pralhad Joshi said on Tuesday, while cautioning that its rapid expansion is accompanied by various risks. “The future of ecommerce in India is bright, inclusive and transformative. While this digital revolution offers incredible opportunities, our government believes it is equally important for consumers to feel confident and make informed choices. Gaining the trust and confidence of consumers is crucial for ecommerce platforms,” Joshi said at Amazon's flagship annual summit, Amazon Smbhav. “Online platforms are now required to provide accurate product details, transparent pricing, disclose the country of origin, and ensure clear return and refund policies while maintaining product quality,” he said, emphasising that platforms often attempt to promote a particular brand.

Poonawalla Fincorp, a Cyrus Poonawalla Group-promoted non-banking finance company, has announced the appointment of Salil Hajarnis as chief technology officer (CTO), said a statement issued today. His appointment was approved by the board of directors on September 11, 2024, and will take effect on December 10, 2024. He will lead the company's technology strategy, focusing on digital transformation and AI-driven customer solutions. With over two decades of experience in technology leadership, he has worked in roles spanning enterprise architecture, software engineering, and AI integration. At Fiserv, as head of technology for India, he led major initiatives including AI and API-enabled solutions, real-time integrations, and platform modernisation across key markets in India, ASEAN, and Australia.

dearness allowances (DA) by 3% to 53% for central government employees. The new DA hike has been in effect from July 1, 2024 onwards. Central government employees received higher take-home pay after the government raised a number of additional benefits when the dearness allowance reached 50%. The 7th Pay Commission suggested raising several allowances when the dearness allowance reaches 50%. The hike in DA led to a 25% increase in 13 important allowances from January 1, 2024 onwards. In September, two additional allowances — the nursing allowance and the clothing allowance, were revised for eligible employees. As stated in a July 4, 2024, circular issued by the Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), «Attention is drawn to the following orders issued by Department of Expenditure/DoPT in the past and request that consequent upon the increase of Dearness Allowance by 4% to 50% w.e.f. 01.01.2024, the payments of the following allowances wherever applicable may be made at enhanced rates of 25% over the existing rates w.e.f. 01.01.2024.”

initial public offering (IPO) of the digital payments platform One MobiKwik Systems is set to open for public subscription on Wednesday, December 11, and will close on December 13. Ahead of the issue, the grey market premium (GMP) for MobiKwik shares is around Rs 125-130, indicating a 45% premium over the issue price.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In a market environment where only 35% of portfolio management services (PMS) strategies have outperformed the broader indices, a disciplined approach on the part of PMS funds continues to deliver exceptional value for investors. Q2FY25 was a reset quarter for the market.

Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday hit out at Congress leader & LoP Rahul Gandhi after his party held a protest at the Parliament premises on Monday over the Admatter. Rijiju slammed Rahul Gandhi and took a jab at his foreign vacations. «Rahul Gandhi enjoys creating a tamasha and abusing the Prime Minister but other MPs have responsibilities towards the people who have elected them. All he has to do is create a tamasha here and then go abroad to enjoy his holidays,» the Union Minister posted on X. In another post, Rijiju posted a Rahul Gandhi's protest video outside the parliament and quoted that Congress leader doesn't care about people's problems because he has nothing to lose.

S.M. Krishna who has been credited for for putting Bengaluru on the global map as a fillip given to the IT sector during his tenure resulting in the city growing as India's Silicon Valley' passed away at his residence early Tuesday morning, his family told news agency PTI. The politician was awared with Padma Vibhushan from President Droupadi Murmu in 2023. «S.M. Krishna is no more. He breathed his last at 2:45 am at his residence. Mortal remains are likely to be taken to Maddur today,» the source told PTI.

That has, quietly, changed. While few believe Indian statisticians are actively working to make growth numbers look better than they are, less and less data is publicly available, methods are less transparent, and the GDP figures in particular sometimes diverge puzzlingly from independent data. The minister in charge of statistics recently told Parliament that the government planned to ask a new committee to recommend how it should update its national accounts. Official statisticians should seize this opportunity to overhaul how India’s GDP is calculated in order to win back trust.

Brian Thompson in a brazen shooting outside a Manhattan hotel last week, New York City officials said on Monday, ending a massive five-day manhunt. The suspect, identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, was captured in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after he was spotted eating at a McDonald's by an employee of the fast food restaurant who believed he resembled the gunman, officials said at a news conference. Mangione was led into the Blair County courthouse in Altoona for his arraignment on Monday night, where gun and forgery charges were read against him. The judge asked Mangione if he understood the charges against him, and he said he did. No plea was entered.

Lenovo in the next two quarters, will have its PC plant in Puducherry manufacture GPU-based servers that will also serve as an export base for the company, said Shailendra Katyal, MD, Lenovo in an interview with ET. 100% of Motorola phones, a Lenovo subsidiary, is already made in India through Dixon, its EMS partner. It exports 1.5 million phones to markets like North America. «The forecast for manufacturing in India next year is pushing $3.5 billion,» Katyal said, adding that around $1.5 billion worth of hardware will be exported. Lenovo's Bengaluru lab is also one of the four facilities of the company in the world for server innovation. The lab also works on hardware, software and firmware. After HP, Lenovo is number two in the PC/tablets market in India, and is also in the third position in the servers/storage market.

The French multinational and its non-profit partner organisation were keen to digitise both natural and man-made features from aerial imagery of desert terrain. So they turned to artificial intelligence (AI) for assistance. Given the vast geographical regions involved, they sought out automated methods to identify and track roads, tracks and trails. In a bid to spur AI-led innovation internally, large technology companies are not just training their employees in AI but also encouraging various teams to come up with use cases and deploy the technology in their verticals.

Prosus, the Dutch-listed investment arm of Naspers, is in an advanced stage of talks to lead a new round of funding in fintech Jar, people in the know said. The Swiggy investor has upped its new deal pipeline in India, and this would be the third major deal in the fintech and financing sector after itsinvestments in Mintifi and Vastu Housing Finance. It has also backed IPO-bound jewellery maker Bluestone this year. Jar, which helps consumers save small amounts to invest in digital gold, has held talks with investors to raise around $50 million in this round. The startup was last valued at $300 million when it raised $22.6 million from Tiger Global in 2022.